Page 12 of All’s Fair In Love & War (The Bulgari Cartel #2)

His gaze dropped to the space between us, then rose slowly, as if he was deciding if he wanted to devour me or destroy me.

“You done?” he asked, voice low and cold.

I wasn’t. “Not even close. I—” I started, but before I could get another word out, his hand locked around the back of my neck, yanking my head back with enough force to steal my breath, and then his mouth was on mine, fierce and claiming.

The kiss wasn't tender. It was hungry, reckless, filled with heat and frustration, and words unspoken that made my whole body react.

His other hand clutched my waist, pulling me into him like he needed to feel every inch of defiance he'd awakened.

He tasted like mint and wildness, his skin carrying the faint scent of cedar that made my treacherous heart skip against my ribs.

I kissed him back because I didn't know how not to. Because part of me needed the contact as much as the fight. My hands found his shoulders, fingers digging in, wanting to push him away and pull him closer in the same desperate motion.

We kissed like we were trying to outlast the war between us.

Like our mouths could say what our pride refused to admit.

My pulse hammered against his thumb where it pressed into my throat, and I realized with startling clarity that I wasn't surrendering, I was claiming something too.

Taking what I needed from him as fiercely as he was taking from me.

God, I hated how much I wanted this because wanting him meant admitting how tired I was of fighting alone.

When he pulled back, his forehead rested against mine, both of us breathing like we'd walked through fire and somehow survived. My lips felt swollen, tender, and branded by the admission neither of us had been brave enough to speak.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he murmured against my skin, his voice barely above a whisper. “This thing between us. You being Don, you walking into the same fire I’ve spent most of my life wishing I’d never been born into.”

I gasped, my eyes snapping to his—and just like that, I was drowning. Everything he’d been too proud to say, too guarded to show, was right there. Raw. Open. Unfiltered.

“I hate that shit,” he confessed, fingers gliding up my ribs.

“I hate not being able to shield you,” he said, his voice low, rough with truth.

“Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't be a muthafucka in this world that could challenge you in front of me. Watching you explain yourself to anyone but me doesn’t sit right. Makes me wanna tear the whole room apart.”

His chest rose with a shaky breath.

“I’m trying to trust you,” he said, voice rougher now, “Trying to believe you’ll survive the same world I’ve spent my life surviving. I’ve already lost too much, Tatum. If I ever lost you...”

His sentence broke off, swallowed by silence, his heart thudding against my chest, like it didn’t know whether to race from panic or love.

“I can’t promise to get it right,” he said finally, pressing a hand to my stomach, grounding us both. “But I promise I’ll try.”

That was it.

Not a vow. Not a lie. The truth, raw and imperfect, like everything between us.

And it shattered me more than any argument ever could.

Tears welled in my eyes, blurring the lines of the room, the table, even Naeem. I could barely see him, but I felt everything. For the first time all night, he wasn’t standing above me, wasn’t casting his shadow over my decisions. He was beside me, no longer my obstacle, but my partner.

It was everything I wanted. Everything I demanded. And somehow, it was too much.

My breath hitched, sharp and sudden, as the pressure behind my ribs surged. My chest clenched, air growing tighter, thinner, like I’d been holding it in too long, and now it was fighting to get out. The kiss deepened, but my body was spiraling. My head spun. My stomach flipped.

I tried to pull back, to get a breath, to find my footing. But Naeem didn’t let me go. He held me like he always did—tight, possessive, unrelenting. His mouth stayed on mine, devouring me like he couldn’t feel the way I was unraveling in his hands.

I pushed at his chest, a weak attempt to break the hold, but he only gripped the back of my neck harder, kissing me deeper, like he could anchor me through it.

Then I gagged.

Right into his mouth.

That’s when he finally yanked back, his expression twisting fast, from lust to pure horror.

“Tatum?” Naeem reached for me, hand firmly wrapping around my arm. “What’s going on?”

“I need to—” I pulled back, but he didn’t let go.

That hesitation cost him everything.

Before I could warn him again, the nausea surged past every bit of self-control I had left. My body jerked forward, and I threw up, forceful and loud, straight down the front of his white shirt, and it didn’t stop until I was weak and felt as though I had nothing left in me.

Naeem stood frozen, stiff as stone, eyes wide like he couldn’t believe what happened. I stumbled back, heart racing, watching the horror crawl across his face as he looked down at the mess between us. His lip curled like the smell had slapped him.

“Tatum… what the hell?” he croaked, his voice strained.

Then he gagged.

Twice.

Bent at the waist like it hit him in the soul.

I swayed on my feet, trying to wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, mortified beyond words. “ I-I told you to let me go.”

“Oh no,” he muttered, stumbling back a step, eyes wide, face pale. “Oh, hell no. Why is it warm? What was that? Shrimp?”

I couldn’t help it. Even as I held my stomach, even as my face flushed with embarrassment, a laugh cracked free of my throat.

Naeem backed up another step, hand hovering over his mouth like he was at war with his own stomach. “You think this shit is funny?”

I laughed harder, the sound jagged and ugly. “No, but you should’ve let me go when you felt me trying to pull away.”

He pointed at his shirt like it had personally offended him. “We are never talking about this again.”

“You might not, but I am,” I whispered, wiping my eyes.

My voice cracked, but I didn’t have the strength to care anymore. I was tired of biting my tongue, of holding everything in, of pretending life wasn’t swallowing me whole.

“I’m telling Riley and Sophia,” I said, the words trembling as they left me, my lips barely able to form them.

Then the world tilted. The air thickened, the walls pulsed, and before I could catch myself, my legs folded beneath me. Heat, adrenaline, the meeting, the fight with my husband, the blood, the murder—it all hit at once, colliding in my chest and crashing through me like a wave I couldn’t ride.

And just like that, I was gone.

When I slowly came to, my body was suspended somewhere between warmth and weightlessness, like I was floating beneath the surface of a dream.

The scent of him hit first. It was earthy and clean, with a sharp trace of clove and whatever expensive cologne clung to his skin.

The steam wrapped around me in soft tendrils, and then I felt it—his hands.

One steady at the base of my spine, the other cradling my thigh as he guided us down into the water.

It was then I realized Naeem was naked.

And so was I.

My pulse stuttered, but I didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

The bath was hot, not scalding, but close enough to sting.

Still, his grip never faltered. He held me like he’d done it a hundred times before, as if there was nothing unusual about lowering his wife—his enemy—into a bath after she'd passed out in his arms.

His chest pressed to my back, and when he finally settled behind me, his arms circled my waist, pulling me flush against him.

There was nothing between us—no barriers, no layers to hide behind, no lies to soften the truth, no fabric, and no pretense.

Only skin, slick and flushed, and heat simmering in places water couldn’t touch.

My body tensed on instinct, but his mouth brushed my shoulder, soft enough to steal the breath I was reclaiming.

“You scared the hell out of me,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry. I was just overwhelmed by the day.”

The bathwater lapped gently around us, the silence thick with everything neither of us was ready to say. His hands moved, not with urgency, but purpose, slipping lower and gripping tighter, like he needed to memorize every inch of me just in case I was taken away.

And I might. Eventually.

But not today.

Not while his mouth was at my neck and his voice was in my ear and the war between us had paused long enough to let lust pretend everything wrong in our marriage was alright.

Still, deep down, I knew the truth.